Gallows View: Inspector Banks, Book 1

Former London policeman Alan Banks relocated to Yorkshire seeking some small measure of peace. But depravity and violence are unfortunately not unique to large cities. His new venue, the quaint little village of Eastvale, seems to have more than its fair share of malefactors---among them a brazen Peeping Tom who hides in night's shadows spying on attractive, unsuspecting ladies as they prepare for bed.

Before the Poison

Through years of success in Hollywood composing music for Oscar-winning films, Chris Lowndes always imagined he would come full circle, home to Yorkshire with his beloved wife, Laura. Now he's back in the Yorkshire Dales, but Laura is dead, and Chris needs to make a new life for himself. The isolated house he buys sight unseen should give him the space to come to terms with his grief and the quiet to allow to him to work. Kilnsgate House turns out to be rather more than he expected, however.

Whisky from Small Glasses: A D.C.I. Daley Thriller, Book 1

DCI Jim Daley is sent from the city to investigate a murder after the body of a woman is washed up on an idyllic beach on the West Coast of Scotland. Far away from urban resources, he finds himself a stranger in a close-knit community. Love, betrayal, fear and death stalk the small town, as Daley investigates a case that becomes more deadly than he could possibly imagine, in this compelling Scottish crime novel infused with intrigue and dark humour.

Blackwater

January 1983, Colchester CID. A new year brings new resolutions for Detective Inspector Nicholas Lowry. With one eye on his approaching 40th birthday, he has given up his two greatest vices: smoking and the police boxing team. As a result the largest remaining threat to his health is now his junior colleague's reckless driving.

Knots and Crosses

'And in Edinburgh of all places. I mean, you never think of that sort of thing happening in Edinburgh, do you...?' 'That sort of thing' is the brutal abduction and murder of two young girls. And now a third is missing, presumably gone to the same sad end. Detective Sergeant John Rebus, smoking and drinking too much, his own young daughter spirited away south by his disenchanted wife, is one of many policemen hunting the killer.

No Cure For Love

Vintage Peter Robinson: a standalone LAPD crime thriller, written and set 20 years ago - never before available in the United Kingdom. In 1980s Hollywood, the beautiful star of a hit TV cop show is being sent strange letters. At first Sarah Broughton dismisses the letters as the ramblings of a lonely fan. But when the letters take on a disturbing tone, and Sarah discovers a body in the sand outside her Malibu beach house, the experts are brought in.

Hidden Killers

Jane Tennison, a young, inexperienced WPC, learns the hard way never to take anyone - or anything - at face value, whether in her dealings with her police colleagues or when confronted by seemingly innocent suspects. Hidden Killers sees Jane acting as a decoy prostitute, with the hope of capturing a suspect wanted for numerous sexual assaults. The attacker is drawn in and put under arrest. Commended for bravery in the case, Jane is given CID status and moves from Hackney to Bow Street Station as detective.

The Last Detective

A woman's naked body is found floating in the weeds of a lake near Bath by an elderly woman walking her Siamese cats. No one comes forward to identify her, and no murder weapon is found, but sleuthing is Superintendent Peter Diamond's speciality. A genuine gumshoe, practising door stopping and deduction: he is the last detective. Struggling with office politics and a bizarre cast of suspects, Diamond strikes out on his own, even when Forensics think they have the culprit.

A Bird in the Hand

Young Tom French was found dead, lying in a marsh on the Norfolk coast, with his head bashed in and his binoculars still around his neck. One of the best birders in England, Tom had put the village of Rushy on the birdwatching map. Everyone liked him. Or did they? George Palmer-Jones, an elderly birdwatcher who decided quietly to look into the brutal crime, discovered mixed feelings aplenty.

Out Of Bounds

When a teenage joyrider crashes a stolen car and ends up in a coma, a routine DNA test reveals a connection to a twisted unsolved murder from 22 years before. Meanwhile, Karen Pirie finds herself irresistibly drawn into another mystery that she has no business investigating; a mystery that has its roots in a terrorist bombing two decades ago. And again, she finds that nothing is as it seems....

The Grave Tattoo

When torrential summer rains uncover a bizarrely tattooed body on a Lake District hillside, old wives' tales also come swirling to the surface. For centuries Lakelanders have whispered that Fletcher Christian staged the massacre on Pitcairn so that he could return home. And there he told his story to an old friend and schoolmate, William Wordsworth, who turned it into a long narrative poem.

Damage

Jeff Hinkley, undercover investigator for the British Horseracing Authority, is looking into the shady activities of a racehorse trainer. But as he's tailing his quarry through the Cheltenham Racing Festival, the last thing he expects to witness is a gruesome murder. Could it have something to do with the reason the trainer was banned in the first place - the administration of illegal drugs to his horses? Days later, many more horses test positive for prohibited stimulants.

Publisher's Summary

A disgraced college lecturer is found murdered with £5,000 in his pocket on a disused railway line near his home. Since being dismissed from his job for sexual misconduct four years previously, he has been living a poverty-stricken and hermit-like existence in this isolated spot.

The suspects range from several individuals at the college where he used to teach to a woman who knew the victim back in the early '70s at Essex University, then a hotbed of political activism. When Banks receives a warning to step away from the case, he realises there is much more to the mystery than meets the eye - for there are plenty more skeletons to come out of the closet....

I found that there was an unusually slow start to this book - to me it seemed to take some time getting off the ground. However, it was worth persevering as the plot eventually drew me in and made me want to get to the end.

Each of Robinson's books adds a little more dimension to the character of Banks and I like the way he manages to weave in compassion for victim - and sometimes 'villain' - in his narrative.

I'm less keen on the narrator as I find his style a little flat an lugubrious, with some frankly off inflections that I'd have thought would be better edited out.

After his last DCI Banks book, which I found so boring that I did not finish it, I was hoping for something better but alas it was not to be. I ploughed through to the end but I did not enjoy the book.

Perhaps he has run out of plots for Eastvale but after "Bad Boy" and "Friend of the Devil" I had hoped for much better.

It may be time for a rest for DCI Banks until the creative juices begin again and more books like "Before the Poison" (excellent read) could be produced.

This started off pretty well and I was relieved as I have not listened to an Inspector Banks novel since the appalling 'Bad Boy'. I was pleased to hear the return of Banks and his team, and the plot - the murder of a college lecturer- sounded promising. Although, as with all Robinson's work, the quality of the writing is good, the narration is fairly monotonous and the plot moves far too slowly. As I wasn't gripped by it this became a very disjointed, confused listen. I really wanted to enjoy the work of one of my once favourite crime writers but unfortunately this does not live up to expectations or the pre 'Bad Boy' Robinson novels.

Listened to most Peter Robinson books. This one in my opinion is far to long and drifts off with long passages which have no relevance to the story. Not his best. Better perhaps in abridged form. However the narratorIs good.

Someone who was learning English as a foreign language and needed to hear a lot of repetition in order to grasp the basic story. Also, being a non-native speaker, they might not mind the inadequacies of the narrator.

What will your next listen be?

Nothing by Peter Robinson, and practically anything that isn't read by Simon Slater.

What didn’t you like about Simon Slater’s performance?

His inability to make any of the dialogue (and there's loads of it) sound as though it might have been spoken by a believable character. Any figures of authority were made to sound cuttingly supercilious, and he often had to give up on an accent half way through a conversation.

You didn’t love this book--but did it have any redeeming qualities?

None that I noticed, I tried hard to listen to the bitter end, but decided to get a life instead and abandoned it 2 hours and 47 minutes before the blessed relief of being able to consign it to a well-deserved oblivion.

Any additional comments?

Haven't I said enough? This was a real disappointment, as it seemed okay for about the first chapter. Shall definitely avoid anything I might buy on spec mainly because it has had glowing reviews, in future.

I have read and enjoyed all of Peter Robinson's Banks stories - but this one was not one of the best. It was complicated and I ended up skipping to the end. I will try the new one when published but hope its better and more like some of the older books.